


The Downed Dragon

by Eleen



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: (both physical and with words), Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Movie 1: How To Train Your Dragon (2010), POV Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Self-Esteem Issues, mention of bullying, the scene of hiccup meeting toothless but now with some More Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26649736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eleen/pseuds/Eleen
Summary: A small fic exploring the scene where Hiccup first meets Toothless (after he shoots him down), detailing Hiccup's thought process as he goes from wanting to kill Toothless to setting him free instead. Featuring a heavy dose of Hiccup struggling with self-esteem issues and feeling conflicted."…It looked just as frightened as Hiccup felt.For a second, just a split second before Hiccup could push the thought down again, Hiccup sawhimself."
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	The Downed Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened because for the longest time I've had such a fascination with this scene, it's kinda _the scene that started it all_ , and I wanted to explore it some more.
> 
> Please be aware of the following:  
> \- Mention of bullying (physical and with words) and Hiccup having self-esteem issues and not thinking very highly of himself  
> \- Mention of killing, because y'know Hiccup first intends to kill Toothless in this scene etc etc (nothing more graphic than what's mentioned/shown in the movie itself!!)
> 
> Also I highly recommend you listen to [ the track that accompanies this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVp_KdNQaRU), The Downed Dragon, which as you can see, I named this fic after. It's absolutely brilliant. As Hiccup raises the knife, at about[ 2:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVp_KdNQaRU?t=1652:44) in the track, it starts with this rousing Berkian theme, with Hiccup psyching himself up for the kill, then there's this shift to a theme that feels much more desperate and hopeless and _emotional_ as Hiccup changes his mind, I love it _so much_.
> 
> Enjoy!

There, in front of him, tangled in ropes, was the Night Fury. _Hiccup had found it._

He fumbled for the dagger on his belt as a precaution. Not that it was of much use, it really was more of a tool rather than a weapon, but it would have to do. Why didn’t he think to bring a better weapon with him? He really was still rather bad at this dragon-killing business.

As he took a closer look, however, the dragon lay completely still.

Hiccup felt elation swell up in his chest and he let out a relieved laugh. This was going to fix everything! He would come back to the village, having done what no other Viking before him could, having brought down a _Night Fury,_ and no one could think of him as useless ever again. No more taunts, no more sneers, no more humiliation. He would finally be accepted, maybe people would actually start to listen to his ideas, seeing as he had brought down the Night Fury with the help of one of his contraptions.

He walked up to the beast, still presuming it dead and failing to see its chest rising and falling in his rush of emotions. When he set down his foot on the dragon, it stirred and Hiccup swore he nearly had a heart attack right then and there. He quickly took a few steps back.

Oh, okay, it wasn’t dead yet. Typical. Well, there was only one thing for it, then.

All he would have to do is kill the dragon in front of him, and he would finally have something to be proud of. _His dad_ would finally have something to be proud of. He was going to kill this monster, cut out its heart and take it to his father. Should be easy enough, right?

He pointed the dagger at the dragon, slowly walking up to it again. He raised the dagger above his head, ready to strike.

He looked down at the creature and made the mistake to look into its eyes. They were a deep green, and what Hiccup saw in them made his heart stop for a second, for the emotion was all too familiar to him. He saw _fear_. _It was scared_. Scared of _him_ , _Hiccup_ , the village screw-up whose name might as well have been ‘runt’ or ‘useless’ with how much the village preferred those names over his actual name. Not that his real name was much better, mind, but still. This big, scary, black dragon, _the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself_ , for Thor’s sake, was frightened of the young boy stood in front of it with a tiny dagger. Hiccup would have thought this realization of the dragon’s fear would fill him with some sort of self-satisfaction, send him on some sick power trip that he, Hiccup, had brought down this mighty beast. And he had felt that for that a moment, but it had been very short-lived.

Instead, all he could feel now was unease, and he wasn’t sure why.

The dragon had gone from looking up at him in fear, to closing its big green eyes entirely. It moved its head back in defeat and its chest was heaving from the shuddering breaths it was taking. Hiccup closed his eyes, readying the dagger again, steeling himself for the kill as the monster let out a pitiful groan in resignation.

No.

This was wrong.

This was no monster. Monsters didn’t feel fear, monsters didn’t so easily resign to the fact they were about to be killed by a puny human. This creature was not mindless. Hiccup opened his eyes again and looked at the dragon. It _knew_ what Hiccup was about to do, and it was going to let him go ahead because it knew there was no way out. Its body was tense but it lay completely still, only its chest still heaving with frantic breaths.

…It looked just as frightened as Hiccup felt.

For a second, just a split second before Hiccup could push the thought down again, Hiccup saw _himself_.

 _Himself_ , defenseless and cowering, at the mercy of whoever was in front of him.

 _Himself,_ resigned to take whatever verbal abuse was thrown his way, because it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

 _Himself,_ held down by the twins like the ropes currently holding down the dragon, wishing that whatever Snotlout was planning to do to him, it would be over quickly so he could limp home in shame and look at his father’s face, seeing only disappointment in his eyes.

A _real_ Viking wouldn’t ever take a beating like that from his peers. A _real_ Viking would never allow people to call him names. A _real_ Viking wasn’t scrawny, and useless, and clumsy, and weak, and worthless.

A _real_ Viking would never have hesitated before plunging the dagger he was currently holding into the heart of the defenseless dragon lying at his feet.

Hiccup was no real Viking.

He lowered his arms and loosened his grip on the dagger.

His father was right. He was no dragon killer.

But for the first time in his life, that fact did not fill him with a desperate need to prove his dad wrong. For the first time, he accepted it just as he accepted the sky was blue and the grass was green. And for the first time, he wasn’t sure he should accept that Vikings were always meant to kill dragons.

He looked at the dragon again, still lying unmoving with its eyes closed.

“I did this,” he whispered out loud.

 _He_ was the reason this creature was shot down and bound in ropes. He was the one who had caused it to feel scared, and helpless, and _alone_. All awful things that Hiccup himself had felt countless times before.

He had been about to kill a creature that had shown fear, a creature that was completely defenseless at the moment. A creature that was not a monster.

_Who was the real monster here?_

Before he was fully aware of what he was doing, Hiccup was cutting away the ropes that bound the dragon. Its eyes shot open and as the last rope fell away, Hiccup’s breath was knocked out of him and he felt himself being slammed into a rock. He felt something pin him down at his neck and his vision was filled with stars for a second. When his vision cleared again, he gasped as he looked into the startlingly green eyes of the dragon, who was now poised above him and inches from his face. He felt his heart pound in his chest so wildly he thought it was going to escape and his breathing accelerated till he was hyperventilating.

He tried to struggle out of the dragon’s grasp, but it was no use. Its eyes felt like they were staring right into Hiccup’s soul. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, as the creature just stood there, holding Hiccup down and looking at him. It occurred to Hiccup that it almost seemed as if the dragon was searching for something as it was looking into Hiccup’s eyes and… sniffing him? Was it having the same internal struggle Hiccup had had, debating with himself whether it was right to kill? Were dragons even capable of that sort of thing? Could dragons _think_? Was the dragon thinking of letting Hiccup go, just like Hiccup had let the dragon go?

Just as Hiccup was considering this, however, the dragon reared back and showed its teeth.

Well, this was it. This is what you get for showing a dragon weakness, he supposed. How could he have thought himself similar to this beast, even for a second? It had probably sensed that Hiccup was too soft, too weak, too sensitive, and it had waited for the right moment to strike. Hiccup couldn’t really find it in himself to blame the beast. Killing was in its nature, and it had just employed the right strategy and had outsmarted Hiccup.

Hiccup closed his eyes and waited for death to claim him. What a way to go though, death by Night Fury. Not that anyone would ever know that it had _been_ a Night Fury, though. They’d probably chalk it up to a single terrible terror. Almost anything would be able to kill him, he supposed. Oh well. Not like anyone would really miss him. One less mouth to feed and one less nuisance to deal with.

Death never came that day, however. The air around him was suddenly filled with a piercing shriek, which must have come from the Night Fury, and Hiccup’s nostrils were filled with a foul fishy scent. The pressure on his neck suddenly vanished. When he managed to open his eyes again, he saw the Night Fury’s retreating form.

Wait.

...What?

It took a moment for him to take in what had just happened. When he had set out to kill a Night Fury in the woods that day, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine things would turn out like this. Leave it to him to needlessly complicate such a simple task as ‘go to the woods and kill the dragon.’

His mind raced and his heart was still pounding in his ears as thoughts rushed through his mind. He had _shot down a Nigh Fury._ And then, for some reason he still couldn’t quite explain to himself, _he had_ _let it go._ And then, another thing he couldn’t explain, the dragon had let _him_ go as well, without much more than a loud (and smelly) warning.

Why?

Did they come to some sort of understanding? What would happen next? Would the Night Fury show up again, in the next raid? Had he, by refusing to kill this dragon, accidentally helped the raiding dragons?

Was he a traitor now?

He didn’t regret it. That’s probably what surprised and scared him the most. He did not regret setting free the _unholy offspring of lightning and death itself_. At the moment he was unsure about a whole lot of things, but that was one of the few things he was absolutely sure about.

For some reason, it had felt like the right thing to do.

There was one last set of thoughts that came to him before he collapsed onto the ground, losing consciousness, his brain too overwhelmed and deciding it was better to just shut down for the moment.

_I showed this dragon I was scared, and it showed me it was just as scared._

_I gave this dragon mercy, and it gave me mercy too._

_I spared its life, and it spared mine in return._

_This dragon was a lot more human than most humans I’ve met so far._

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing for HTTYD and man, is Hiccup fun to write. I love our talking fishbone so much <3  
> I'm not too great with criticism and this was something I wrote as kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, so I ask that if you leave a comment to please focus on the aspects that you did like, rather on things I might've done wrong! Thanks :)


End file.
